How Much Can America Do?

By George J. Chruch

Its power is vast, but its global commitments are breathtaking

"We are a nation with global responsibilities." So said President Reagan in his speech to the nation last week on the events in Beirut and Grenada. But he did not address the question that assertion raises at the most basic level: Has the nation taken on worldwide commitments for the potential use of force that its military power currently is stretched too thin to fulfill?

The answer by military experts is not altogether reassuring. Its essence: as long as trouble on opposite sides of the globe can be met by deployments the size of those in Lebanon and Grenada, there is no strain. Those two crises are engaging only two of the twelve Marine amphibious units (a total of 150,000 troops) available to be dispatched round the world, and, of course, there remain all the other armed services of the nation to be drawn ons But a pair of widely separated major confrontations--a Soviet threat to the Persian Gulf oilfields, say, and a blowup in Korea--would pose a real problem. General John A. Wickham, the Army Chief of Staff, fears that U.S. commitments "probably exceed the force capabilities."

The U.S. is obliged by treaty to defend Japan, South Korea and Western Europe (and Western Europe, by NATO definition, includes Greece and Turkey) from armed attack. It has a clearly enunciated pledge to use force if necessary to keep oil flowing to the free world from the Middle East. This implies a determination to defend Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan from threats external and internal. Six months of maneuvers and training exercises in Honduras, involving up to 5,000 troops at one time, underscore U.S. opposition to leftist revolution in Central America. The U.S. recently felt obliged to send AWACS planes to watch Libyan activities in the African state of Chad.

To honor these pledges and missions, the U.S. maintains enormous forces round the world. But bringing them to bear in trouble spots involves severe difficulties. The worst is a shortage of sealift and airlift capacity, brought on because the Navy and Air Force for decades have preferred to spend their money on combat hardware rather than on cargo ships and planes. Since 1981, the number of U.S. "mobile logistics ships" (vessels that carry petroleum, ammunition and other cargo to resupply battle fleets at sea) has increased by exactly one, from 72 to 73. Some 50 new transport planes are on order to supplement the present fleet of 70 C-5A Galaxies and 234 C-141 Star-Lifters. But the new planes will not begin flying for two years.

For an example of what could happen, take a case that has occupied much of the attention of U.S. planners: a hypothetical Soviet invasion of Iran. Theoretically, the U.S. Rapid Deployment Force could send 3 1/3 Army divisions (representing some 55,000 men, with tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, mortars, machine guns and personal weapons), 1 1/3 Marine amphibious forces, and seven Air Force fighter wings totaling 504 planes. To do so, however, would take weeks, and after that the U.S. would be hard pressed to fly or ship in the fuel, food and ammunition to sustain the R.D.F. during a long campaign.

In addition, the R.D.F. units that could be dispatched to the Middle East are also earmarked to reinforce NATO during a European crisis. European allies would surely howl that they could not be spared, since a Middle East war might spill over into Europe. Former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown warns that even in relatively minor trouble areas like Lebanon, prolonged deployments "are manageable over a period of months--but if they go on for a year or more, they could reduce our ability to deal with a major contingency."

It is not easy to see what might be done. Commitments could be lightened, but which friendly states should be told the U.S. might not defend them? Military forces could be built up further; the U.S. may even need the draft. But Reagan is having trouble getting his present defense-spending requests through Congress (he asked for a 14.2% increase over fiscal 1983). Perhaps the most comforting thought is that the Soviet Union, faced by a hostile China on one flank and ringed by potentially mutinous East European allies on another, has its own worries about how much military force it could safely commit to any bloody, prolonged foreign adventure.

--By George J. Church.

Reported by Bruce W. Nelan/Washington

With reporting by Bruce W. Nelan/Washington This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.